Howard Kurtz: August 15, 2010 - August 21, 2010

Rupert Murdoch, who has never been shy about making his political views known, has voted with his sizable checkbook.
Murdoch's News Corp. has made a $1 million donation to the Republican Governors Association, triggering swift criticism from Democrats that a contribution of that magnitude casts a shadow on his media properties, particularly Fox News.
"For a media company -- particularly one whose slogan is 'fair and balanced' -- to be injecting themselves into the outcome of races is stunning," Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association, said Tuesday. "The people owning Fox News have made a decision that they want to see Democratic governors go down to defeat. It's a jaw-dropping violation of the boundary between the media and corporate realm."

On Dec. 8, 2009, the New York Times published a story about a planned development in lower Manhattan:
"The building has no sign that hints at its use as a Muslim prayer space, but these modest beginnings point to a far grander vision: an Islamic center near the city's most hallowed piece of land that would stand as one of ground zero's more unexpected and striking neighbors.
"The location was precisely a key selling point for the group of Muslims who bought the building in July. A presence so close to the World Trade Center, 'where a piece of the wreckage fell,' said Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the cleric leading the project, 'sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11.'